Saving and exporting projects
There are two ways to get your work out of Audacity: Saving the project, and exporting audio.
☁️ Saving projects to cloud
This feature is only available in the Audacity 3.5 Beta. Try it now: https://audacityteam.org/beta
Cloud projects have backups and versioning, ensuring you'll never lose your work, even if your computer was to fail. Additionally, you can easily share them with collaborators.
To save a project to the cloud, first go to File -> Save to Cloud. In the dialog that follows, click Link Account.
You will be guided through the audio.com signup process, and finally given an option to link your audio.com account to Audacity.
Once you have linked your audio.com account to Audacity, simply enter the project name and hit Save. The project will now be uploaded in the background.
For the first time you save, you'll be asked how often you want to generate a mixdown. The mixdown is used to preview the file on audio.com. If you don't intend on collaborating with others, it may not be necessary to generate mixdowns. You can change your preference at any time in Edit -> Preferences -> Cloud.
Saving projects to the computer (.aup3)
You can save projects using the File -> Save Project -> Save Project menu.
A saved project has the most information about your project available. If you save a project, you can change realtime effects later on, or untrim clips.
Warning: Avoid saving active projects on external drives, USB sticks, or network storage. Audacity requires fast, uninterrupted access to your storage when recording and editing.
Exporting audio (.mp3, .wav, .ogg, ...)
Note: You may need to install FFMPEG to access some of these options.
You can export your project into an audio file using the File -> Export Audio... menu item. Exported audio files can be opened with a wide variety of programs.
Tips & Tricks
Use mono if you don't need directionality (eg. if you're just recording your voice).
As an alternative to MP3, the Opus and M4A (AAC) options deliver higher quality at the same file size compared to MP3.
As an alternative to WAV, the FLAC and Wavpack options offer lossless compression, reducing file sizes by up to half while not losing any information.
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